Fathers Day

It took 20 years but I finally gave the talk, prepared long ago, in a church meeting yesterday. I spoke about my Dad and what he meant to me. He was a very interesting man and while I was still a child my memory is that of a funny man who could tap dance and make funny faces that would make me laugh. He had no control over the circumstances that changed his life and they were many. First of all the depression came and having a job was at the heart of whether you got by, or whether you had to call on family to help you through it. Dad was a proud man and when the bank took his $3700 home, he became despaired and sometime after that a very serious heart attack knocked him down again. Things were so bad that he and Mom had to move into the basement of Louise' parents basement. No money,no home no pride and he became a very reclusive person with only his immediate family to cling to. And cling he did and became a wonderful grandfather. I truly think that it was my children that helped him restore some semblance of personal respectability. While he loved my Mother, she alone was not sufficient to help him back on a path to the man he once was and he displayed his love for the kids by having a patience that might have been his life support. I think I may have been somewhat of a disappointment to my Father. He expected his sons to be the fix-it personality that in an earlier day, was one of his strengths. He could do ANYTHING from sewing clothes for me and my brothers to re-wiring a house if it was needed. He was a fine musician and at a younger age became an Eagle scout and won the bugling contest  for the city of Rochester, N./Y. I, on the other hand had no interest in fixing things. I was into sports and enjoying the social activities of high  school. However, with all his talents, he was not a demonstrative man. I don't ever recall him telling me he loved me. Still, when I entered the service and became a commissioned officer with my gold flight wings, I know he was proud of me. One night when I unexpectedly came home on leave and was talking to Mom in their darkened bedroom, he awoke and instinctively reached up, grabbed me and embraced me.That was the only time in my adult life that any demonstration of affection occurred and that one episode has been in my memory for all these years. Today, people are much more effective in professing their love for members of their family or for friends. That was not the case in the generations of yesteryear. The depression, the hunger, the war, the economic distress all added up to a need stronger than the bonds of love,---survival. And so it was. Did my Dad love me? I never had a doubt. I excused his apparent lack of affection because of these factors just mentioned. He was trying to keep a family afloat and when it was apparent that we had all survived, although he was still a recluse, he realized his sons had grown up, his grandchildren were a delight and his job was completed. He died at the age of 59. I miss him - a lot!